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,

, hand,, at-id were $0 ,mastered by many

Beyond its pedq3gie value, whish iS

5,

I(

despicable and brutal, and turpid,


and ,everything, mair je taiq>za;J, je
1 tf&nais! Ayd there zweye times when
I Iknew how you felt, and it was hell
td knoti it, my; little one.

obviously limited to artists, this, is a


gentlemen before modern tiines. Most
book, of great. beauty for anybody. The.
of the great painters df China, as most
of its great poets, were men occupying
pages of, ,TJ&e ,A4&Ga~d Seed Glwdeqt
have a si@Je ,charm which is ap:
c positions analogous to those filled by
Defense Secretary %%$lson,and the late
proached only by, certain eighteenth
And indeed he did love her, for Humil Senator McCarthy.
P&de+- that fbr a centm-y French masfers of drawing, , bert Humbert ,&,a nian, a whole, comic
themselveS of ,course greatly influenced
while, and you will readily grasp the
man. The books chief offense, I ,guess,
by the ,Chinese, even by this very bdok.
- that it presents a sexual pervert as
difference b&ween the American Way
IS.
To illustrate her introduction, Miss Sae a man to be known and pitied, a man
of Life atid the traditional Chinese. To
it
haSe something to say in thk arts, the has chosen some of the m&t splendid * of: some essential dignity.,Its
other ofexamples of Chinesk painting and, they,. f ens?, .perhaps. as great, is ihat it saric Chinese believed, ,6ne .must come $vith
are perfectly reprodubed. It ,is certain19
cfeterminative experiencesof
the world,
rizes in delighted de%1 our adTan
~
o,ne of the loveli&t books ever produced
,pande&ng to &ildishness
r
not
art-yhether
acquired
through
eas&, vul-
meditation, or, thrqugh the mastery of by the Boll+geo Foundation, and al- garity; titill~tion,8~mindlessdess.,
,,
),
affairs; one, must have arrived a: pro- , though. $25 m,ay loqk expensive here
,
YET JoEta is not primarily
a
satire
* at the head of a review, with the actual
foundly
rodted
conclusions-wisdom;
book in hand it looks very cheap inone must. have the automatic facility
but a coniedy of the exuberant Rabelai of the chess prodigy or the master - deed. I would hate to ghess what it
sjan sort: Tt is supeiabundant in verbal
bpianist. None pf .these qualities are very
cost to ,prodGce. Certhinly it &tild not
e&r,&
(NabokovJs
command
Owq,
apparent at a Carnegie International or be sold, at that :price without yubv&tion
.
American idiom, is a marvC1, greater even
, ,& Venice Biennalea, 1
of the Mellon tiilliqns.
than Corirads over l&er,ary. English)
,,,j:,,...
/
s, ang, it heaps hetails of oui da& life
.
l$ory & &il it,.fofces, our ,tibndereven
more than our repugnatice. It pfeserves
,,
,
),
,,. ,,
,,_
ihat; stiange
doubl&ess
of .comedy
which creates inma,by a dis&infort they
),LQLITA.,
By Vladimii
Nabokov. The, iFed, the:,prey of admen, but for ihorn
resist (Are You So Sure?),, for you
Olympia
Press, Two volumes, !%O he conceives a driving passion. In order
identify
with,:+%1 familiar with, see
to be near Lolita, he marries herwidowfrancs iach.
yourself
in,
a character whom, you at
ed mother. When the mother is ,killed
the sanie time knbw to have performkd,
!
) +qg.i
P. Ellioit
,, by accident, he runs ofs with kis stepabominbble
,,
,,ddeds. It transmutes, as
LOLITA
was published in English two ,daughter, living from motel to hotel a!1
,over
the
count?y,
ivit$
one,
it&e&de
o$,,
4
years ago in Parisi. but it has ndt yet
private school for her. &thqugh
she i 1 in:other i&ortant
,
come out in this c&try,
though ,Naearlier
tempted
him
sex&lly
and
ai%blic Affairs
Press bciok:

, bokov7s, P&z (a minor work) has receritly been issued by Doubleday and 1 though when the, time came , she did ,
: though the ,next issue of Doubledays the :actual, seducing, yet his sustaindd,
p?sslon, and pi-odigiqus sexual demands
, Anchor Review will idcl~de a sizeable
presently repel h$r: He. holds her by
excerpt from Lolita. I suppose our pub;
has no ,mdney and n6, on&
lishers are afraid that Lo&
YouId thre,+-she
who
will
take,
care :df h&r: B& he: in
A, Critfcal -Apprclisai
bring them, lawsuits for being pornoturn i6 the atixidus seiyant of her wliims, .
I,
1: ,: grhphic ai;d immqral.,
By
R&N
for :he knows thai ,she, will escape him
/ BERNARD
,,S
An d pornographkrs ~5would,I am sure,
:I
(if only by li;la&ri,ng,into adoles<e@e): ,,,
_,,find it faiily,, satisfactom foi their lewd
Introdticti,qn,,
by M@x Lirnes$
)
When. finally hShe disappkari,
he is ,,
I'
fahtasies. But only fairly satisfactory,
driven to insanity foi a time and t.0 I : & is a, book for n&d-centurup Amar
for,.like Ulysses befbre it, LoEta by high
ioa in that the inktitutiowo&
..,~is
despair; a-few$ears ,18t2r he finds her
time, and so,cial tho~ngbt of the America *
art transinittes
pt$ns,
motiyes and
of
the,lSSOs
serve
as
&
bnokdrop
&&,st
whi6h
the figure
of V&l&
and his
actions which in ordinary life are con- married to ,a workingman a,+ pregria&,
idas
ii pro;iected.
amost prdinary! girl. Hi discovers from
sidered indecent, into objkcts of ,delight,
It
is not
ami eesy
gi4BBPng
that
hei- .that a. bad ~ Playwright
and filq
Veblen gets ,. . ., This book *is a sym.compassion , arid contemIjlation.
Lolita
pathetic
one only in the ~enee that. the
writer
namtd
Quilty
had
helped
her
tb
will turn, no reasonable, jitizeri into a
leaming
of the authors
v&lues is in
e&ape and, had th$,n dro&e$ I h,er. 1At
the sad direotioll &s Veblens,
But
pornographer; thl indecency in it, like
the &itical
process through, which ,the,
the
end,
ht
mui-ders
Quilty.
,Veblen thedries
are sifted is it fiercely
the crime, is always seen with .a clarity
exacting
ones Having
worked
with
Obviously ttie book ioricerns a dis: which does not Cncourage the fabricatBernard
Rosenberg
I can testify
both
eased man performi@
immoral, acts.,
jdyfnlly
and ruefull$
that his is one
ing
of
fantasies.
&LI:
of
the
most
mordant
and
brilliant
.But the book ,is no more immoral than
minds among the younger
social srienThe novel concerns an Americanized
tistn, and. that be delights
in carving
h .Europenn of middie years whose tr&e 1it is pornographic. Fdr we know from the
into lit%
pieces tbe sacred cows of
foreword,
that
.the
narrator
is
a
criminal
the
aaademib
world.
,,In
that
sense he
love is onI+ foi nymphets,
certain
writes
in the sl%rlt in which, Veblen
and
mentally
,abnormal,
and
this
knowlwrote.
.
.
1
--Max
Lerner
: girls between nihe and fourteen. :He
/ falls in love with. one named Lolita, a edge femplrs qur reaction to evkrything,
,Available
at $2.50 ,a copy
he says of himself: Most of ,,gll, bsth
,from
Ieading bookstores
girl whom we discover to be an, al+
Nabokov

and,
the
imaginary
narrator,
or from the putqlisher.
gether unexceptional child of the times,
Humbert Humbert, are wholly unam, ill-parented,
traditioni&,
Hol&?,odpljBw
AFFAIRS PRESS,
. biguous about the nioralitjr of the acts
rL
and
motives.
,f
+

419
New
Jersey Ave.
)
*&,01&a has been reviewed, by the
Washington. 3,, 8. C.
I lo?ed yoil. I Gas ,a pdntapod
U.S. Customs and has,, been ,found admisbible to this cohntry.
monster, but I loved YOU. I was,

only a great book could. this diseased


glrl into people
man
and
this
banal
whom we know so
they
well that
become others-not symbols, nottypes of
Man,not aspects of ourselves, but persons towards wl~om we
permitted
are

and encouraged andatlast


exerclse our
highest
charity.
me

GEORGE P. BLLIOTT is a t presefbt


wfltirrg a ~ l o v e l on a fIudson Review

fdowrhip.

Drum in Johannesburg
DRUM. The Ncnrspaper that Won the
Heart of Anlerica. By Anthony Sampson. Houghton M i N h Company. 256
pp. 83.50.

FOR threeand

a hilfyearsAnthony
Sarnpson was editor of Druns, a monthly
magazine
for
Africans, published
in
Johannesburg. Sampson is an Englishman, but hisconcern was to produce a
journal which
would
serve
the real
needs-and enjoy the patronagerof the
people to which it was addressed. Thus
thereader will find that the book reveals a great deal aboutthe lives, the
work, the joys and suffering, the hopes,
of mind of the
aspirationsandhabits
Africans. And thesearethe
people of
modern South Africa, the Africans of
the future.
The keynote of the book is Nationali s m . The, African
NatlonaIisrn
is a
BlackNationalism
in the sense ( t h a t
these people haveacceptedtheir
color
as thebadge of their common interest.
But it dlffers fromwhite(Afrkaner)
NationaIisrn in t h a t i t does not cling to
itspast.
The Africanhasturned
his
back on rural tribalism as an ideal. H e
has been introduced t o urban llfe, t o
buses and cars, electricity and modern
shops, to education andart,
t o rnuslc
a n d poetry,tobrightlightsand
jatls.
H i hasadoptedWestern
civilization,
good and bad, as his life. .He needs the
city as much as the crty needs him. and
he is not going back to the tribe. Early
in his editorship,
African
friends advised Sarnpson:

..

Give us girls, man. .Tell us


about gangsters. . . . C u t out this tribal stuff. Show us things that matter.

I h e m e e t i q of culrures produces
vivid incongruities.
T

P-boy atthe House


Wevisited
of Commons ( a shebeen or illicit
T H E AUTHOR of this reviem is
l i f r i c a n rbozu travsling in the U&ed
Stater.
writes: I think yoih shozcld
witlthoLd ney nnme. R m x t legislation
i n S o d L Africa mnKeJ- it a cri,m,e t o
p7lblis.h a x y t h b q zohich will dLJtlhrb
good race relations, and thir is a very
broad inju-nctio,#

424

drlnking p1ace)a smallroom ina


dark backyard. The room was ernpopen
ty,but on thetablewasan
book-A
T a l e of Two Cities.
Thetitle of Dlckens novel takes on
a special slgnificance in
thiscontext.
On another occasion a m-aster of ceremonies dresses in his academic B.A.
gown to introduce a singer in a shebeen.
The Nationahsm is Black, butit is
not anti-white. Many incidents tell of
Africans meetmgwhites on the basis of
friendliness and cooperation. The coworking of black and white on the staff
of D ~ I Lis ?one
~ instance. But the deepseated aversion of most whites to conis shown bythe
tact
with
Africans
words of a white policeman when Sampson IS alrested forbeing in an African
location:
Sis, man! Youtell you was actually sitting down eatingwitha
na~ i v e ? ... IIe could hdrdiy bring himself to look a t me.Anymoment
now, and all theblerrynatives
in
Orlando will want to slt down with
Europeans. How can you do it, man?
L

.,&.

wit11 natives..
i t makes
sick, man. And
he
really looked
sick.
method of increasing sales
was to convince
the Africanthat D , . ~
was his paper by championing
the
cause of the African. This was done by
having Drum reportersinvestigate
reports of exploitation andmaltreatment of Africans and exposing these cases in
the magazine. This the visits andesDrum
(one of the
ploits of Mr.
Afrlcan reporters) became Icgcndary.
Mr. Drum got himself arrested in
order t o visitthe jail,signed on as a
laborer on a notorious Bcthal farm, and
thcseandmanyotherstories,repeated
in the book, give tlre reader an 111s1ght
intocontemporary African life.
The evaluatlon of the life of the Cape
colored (people of mixed race) is less
detailedandaccurate,
because Drlrm
dld not operatemuch in CapeTown,
and because i t concentrated on Africans. Some readers will complain that
the positive aspects of white policy
are not sufficiently stressed. Butthat
is not the purpose of the book or of thc
.
purpose
is
to
magazine D P I ~ V LThe
portraytheurban
African of the locations, and this i s well done through the
facts, as well as through the rapid, racy,
humorous idlorn of the African. M ~ s e r y
andfrustration,humorandwit,poiiti-,
cal determination, squalor, dignityand
hurni!~ation--these flow in rapid sequence through the pages of Mr. Sampsons book.

obliged toEating

LETTER
THE inhabttants of Florence and Rome

usually speak of Mdan and the Milanese


wlth undisguised contempt, as the older,
impoverished members -of a distinguished family might speak of a cadet branch
thar had mademoney
in trade. If I
defend Milan to any of my Roman or
Florentine frrends, they reply: Of
cause you like Mdan-its
just !!Be
AmericxJ Actually.its hkethe America t h a t ItaliansInvent for anItallan
ftlm: all plate glass and stainless steel,
snappy advertisrng. smart shops, bustling actrvity. And the n/i~Eanosi-imitated
by Romes chrcset-have
learnedfrom
our f ~ l m st o parodyNew
York. The
words *zmrkend, cockfad, sexy and love
nfinir haveentered
t h e Milanese dlais expected t o arrive
lect; 4 elat~or~rhrp
any minute.
But it is notthis superficial, slightlycornlcal Americanism that I enjoy in

MILAN
Mdan. In his poem,
Praire of Limestone, Auden speaks of the difference
betweenItaly and America, and states
that the latter i s the country for serious
people. Mdan
takes
everything
seriously. I n bars,waiters have a servicewlth-a-smile, customer-is-right air whrch
is the esact opposite of the intimate, erratic, dehghtful andexasperatingattitude assumed by Roman or NeapoIltali
waiters For those df us who livefarther
to the South, a visit t o Mllan is a refreshing relaxation into
reallty
and
order, like going from Paris to London.
In April, two important events proved
how seriously h11lan takes business and
how seriously it takesart.Tile
President of Italy arrived on the12thto
inaugusate Milan's thirty-fifth
annual
TradesFair;and
on the14th,Maria
NIeneghini Callas sangthefirst
performance of the revived A n n a B o h n ,

The NATION

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